TODAY'S EPISODE AND SONGH ERE
<
b>
TOP TEN REASONS I HAVEN'T POSTED A TOP TEN LATELY
Posted by YENDOR on 11/03/99
10. Can't get those catchy
SHURLEY song out of my head.
9.
Working on a second career as sugar
daddy.
8. Stocking up on gas, guns
and foodfor Y2K.
7. Yodeling classes
three times a week.
6. Hooked on
those darn CURIOUS GEORGE books.
5.
TV LAND started showing MY LITTLE
MARGIE.
4. Been in Hooked On Phonics
rehab.
3. Been making doilies for
Christmas.
2. Planning my
presidential campaign.
1. ADD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<
TEN THINGS I WAS AFRAID MY STUDENTS WOULD SAY WHILE I WAS BEING OBSERVED
10. " GEE, THE TEACHER'S
PANTS ARE ZIPPED UP ALL THE WAY
TODAY!"
9. "HE COMBED HIS
HAIR!"
8. "LOOK...HE'S NOT WALKING
FUNNY TODAY!"
7. "WHAT...........NO
COLORING SHEETS TODAY?"
6. "WHAT
ARE THESE 'OBJECTIVES' HE KEEPS TALKING
ABOUT?"
5. "I WONDER WHAT THE MOVIE
FOR TODAY WILL BE?"
4.
"LOOK....HE'S WEARING A DIFFERENT
SHIRT!!!!!"
3. "MR. YENDOR......WHY
DO YOU KEEP SMILING SO MUCH?"
2.
"LOOK...HE'S NOT EATING A SANDWICH WHILE
HE'S
TEACHING!!!!!!"
1.
"MR. YENDOR..IS THAT LADY IN THE CORNER
THE ONE YOU
WARNED US ABOUT?"
(An interesting real-lifeadventure in the Mid-East by our correspondent, David Chin)
Another Lazy Saturday in Beirut Posted by David of Beirut,
Phillip is my favorite barber. His barbershop is located on Bliss Street, the road that runs in front of the American University of Beirut.
I remember the first day I saw this barbershop. The wall protrudes out at a slight angle from the shop and is painted with red and white stripes. When I first saw it, I thought the barbershop was a military security station. You see these security stations all over Beirut - checkpoints that are usually in the center of a road marked with red and white painted oil drums.
Soldiers with assault weapons manning these sandbagged positions are a fairly common sight in Beirut. You see them along the Corniche, the road that parallels the Mediterranean Sea. You see them with rows of armored personnel carriers parked in vacant lots. You see them on foot patrols through the streets. As Carole Cadwalladr and Anna Sutton wrote in the guidebook, Lebanon, A Traveller's Survival Kit, living in Beirut is a lot like living in a war zone without the war.
Here and there you can still see signs of the civil war that tore this country apart from 1975 - 1991. The walls of some buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes and damage from shrapnel. Other buildings are mangled ruins - hollow shells with gaping holes, collapsed floors, and exposed steel girders.
Renovations and repairs to the damage sustained during the civil war continue to this day. Even the school I work in has had its share of repairs. When I first came to Beirut last August, there was scaffolding outside the high school. Piles of bricks and gravel lay in the courtyard. The corridors of the faculty apartment were covered with canvas. Cans of paint lay stacked against one of the walls. Dust was everywhere.
Old timers who were here during the fighting told me about what the school was like during the war. The only electricity came from the school's oil powered generators. The phones didn't work. The water lines didn't work. The exterior walls were pockmarked with bullet holes and shell fragments. The windows of the school were shattered and the window frames were blocked with stacks of sandbags.
I look at the school today and I'm amazed. Today, there are no visible signs of damage - most of the repairs having been completed only a few days before the start of the school year. The only remaining item to be repaired is the elevator in the elementary school - which died for lack of spare parts back in the 1980's. The elevator is now little more than an empty shaft with rusting cables. The entire elevator is scheduled to be replaced during the summer of 2001.
Throughout Beirut, repairs continue. The long neglected sewage system is being fixed. In the center of the city, a company named Solidere, is rebuilding 1.8 million square meters. This is reportedly the single largest urban development project of the century and construction is expected to be completed by the year 2010.
The neat thing about this construction is that in the process of knocking down war damaged buildings the company found the ruins of older buildings. Beirut is apparently a city built upon the remains of other communities. The archaeologists who were hastily called in found the ruins of Phoenician houses and Canaanite burial jars. They even found the remains of a Crusader's fort.
Some of the archaeological findings have been relocated to an archeological park within the Solidere development - but most seem to have been reburied . . . the reconstruction of Beirut apparently taking precedence over matters of historical interest.
Anyway, on Saturday morning, I decided that I needed a haircut. I looked in my wallet for the phone number of my favorite taxi driver. The number wasn't there. Sometime during the past week it had fallen out - probably as I was pulling out a 1,000 lira bill
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